where is the hot water?!?!

i recently came back from a business trip to russia. one word: w.o.w.

lovely country, amazing history, fun people, superb vodka. i was incredibly lucky to witness while in moscow the celebration of the 63rd anniversary of the defeat of nazi germany, celebrated as "victory day" with an impressive military parade and air show to rival those seen in soviet times.

moscow is an impressive city, full of history and contrasts, where you can see couples on their wedding day parading around the city centre, alongside skateboarders, military personnel and the ubiquitous hordes of gorgeous women in impossibly high heels. with an economy growing at the speed of bullet trains, and an increasingly upwardly mobile and educated population, moscow is also the most expensive city in the world.

when we left moscow for siberia, however, things reverted to another era. tyumen was not as cold as i expected it to be and, alas, i was ill-prepared for facing the constraints encountered, as our accommodations fell short of my expectations for a business hotel. for starters, for an eight storey hotel, the lift (elevator) started on the third floor…not sure why, i am convinced that it was a makeshift lift fashioned out of a broom closet with little elves tugging on the pulleys, which would collapse any minute. so we were forced to lug our suitcases and very heavy computer bags up three flights of stairs before we could get to the lift. lesson learned: pack light, like our russian friends, who brought small duffle bags and slim computer cases, and one of them, amusingly, only brought whatever could fit in a medium sized plastic bag! my hero!

next, with a temperature of 20°c+ there was no air conditioning in our rooms. this may not seem like a big deal to some, but if you have lived in the usa for the last 13 years of your life—particularly in texas—you get used to having a/c at all times of the day and night, all year round (yes, even in winter!). then, there was no hot water in the shower. again, this may seem to some like a contradiction, seeing as being hot would perhaps be alleviated by a cold shower, but try showering with cold water first thing in the morning. apparently, in every city in the russian federation, the government provides the hot water to city residents, but every year in the late spring or early summer for about 20 days, they cut off the hot water so that the pipes can be maintained. lovely system, except the cut-off happened while we were there...oh joy. i had to exercise my creative side by using a tea kettle that i managed to obtain from the only english-speaking front desk clerk in the entire place, with which i boiled some water and made a bath in the sink, resulting in water being splashed all over the bathroom (see prior post).

by far the most peculiar anecdote was the laundry. we were told by our russian students that, to get our clothes washed, all we had to do was put them in a plastic bag (which we were expected to provide) and hand them to the floor housekeeper. we found bags and put our clothes in, but we could never find the floor housekeeper, so we took the clothes to the front desk and told the clerk via hand signals (the english-speaking clerk was not working that day) that we needed our clothes washed. she nodded and smiled (a rarity) which we assumed meant she understood us. when we arrived back at the hotel that evening, my bag of clothes was sitting in the exact same spot where the lady in the morning had put it, with a note on it stating (in russian) my name and room number. i was extremely aggravated initially, as i had no clean clothes left whatsoever, until i remembered that i was lucky to have even found my clothes, as they could’ve very well ended up enlarging the inventory of a street vendor at the local flea market. eventually we figured out where the floor housekeeper resided and took the clothes to her, and got them back the next day in perfectly good order, but the entire experience was, as much of the rest of the trip, very unusual.

but despite all of the “character building” experiences, and the harassment of a local drunken woman who kept trying to kick us (mostly me, really) out of the local square for being a (loud) english-speaking foreigner, the best of times were spend hanging out with our russian friends, with a beer in hand and just talking, telling silly jokes and stories, and at times even singing. these were some of the best times we had and i can’t wait to go back to repeat them :)

(photo caption: st. basil's cathedral in red square, moscow, russia)